The Virginia Gazette

FROM A LONDON PAPER.

To the Right Honourable the Earl of Dartmouth.

MY LORD,

As one of the Number who admire your excellent Character, and wish your Lordship well; therefore I cannot avoid, not being personally known to you, giving my Thoughts, though crude, in a Newspaper, according to the Custom of the Times, on the late Resignation of Lord Hillsborough, and its probable Consequences. I must tell your Lordship that I have had some Knowledge of Lord Hillsborough many Years, particularly since he undertook the arduous Task of Secretary of State for the Colonies, in which I think he has acquitted himself well, as a faithful Servant of the Crown and the Publick, committing fewer Mistakes (if any) in the great new Department, than perhaps any other Man in the Kingdom might have done. This I am sure of, that he is a Man of great Abilities, uncommon Application to Business, never suffering Pleasure to interfere with his Duty; very independent Fortune; free from Gaming, Horse-racing, or Debauchery of any Sort; always ready to receive any Information tending to serve the Publick, and to adopt such Part as he thought right; what he rejected he gave substantial Reasons for. Add to all this his uncommon Disinterestedness, which is very conspicuous in this last great noble Instance! giving up the most honourable and perhaps lucrative Employments in this Kingdom: For what? Because he could not, in Conscience, come into a Measure which his Lordship thinks has an evident Tendency not only to hurt Great Britain but the Colonies, by granting upwards of twenty Millions of Acres, in the inland Parts of America, on the Banks of the Ohio, where neither our Ships of War nor Troops can visit the Inhabitants, either to give them Aid or keep them within Bounds.

It is true it is a very fine Country and Climate, but so distant from the Sea it never can be of any Utility to Great Britain; therefore a very dangerous unprofitable Grant, take it in all its Views.

What gave Rise to the Attempt? I am told it was a scheming Man, who has traded away a great Fortune amongst the Indians in those remote Countries; and in Order to remove fifty Thousand Pounds Debt he owes to Merchants in London projected this Plan, in which he has not only engaged his chief Creditors, whose obvious Interest it is to support him in it, caute gu'il caute; but they, and some others of like desperate Circumstances, have left no Stone unturned to engage, as I am credibly informed, several of our Nobility, Members of Parliament, &c. to aid them in their Solicitations, and become Partners, without thoroughly considering the dangerous Tendency to the Publick of settling those Lands, as well as sacrificing Part of their own Fortunes to get imaginary Estates for their Grandchildren, that may possibly produce them Bread and Milk a Hundred Years hence, and probably Independence of their Mother Country. Strange Infatuation! If the Noblemen, &c. who have pressed his Majesty for this extraordinary dangerous Grant have a Title, from their great Services to the State, to such uncommon Notice from the Crown, I hope it is not too late, and that his Majesty may be graciously pleased, to reward their Services, by granting amongst the Petitioners the Chases and Forests within twenty five Miles of London, obliging them to build a Cottage on every ten Acres, and to let these Lands in Lots of ten Acres, and no more, to industrious People, at a Rent not exceeding ten Shillings an Acre. This would, my Lord, redound to the Honour of the King, and Profit of the Nation; or, if such a Plan cannot be adopted, it would, in my Opinion (and I know America well) be more eligible and sensible to settle a Colony in the inland Parts of Africa, suppose Gambia, where the Nation would run no farther Risk than the losing of so many Subjects as it would take to make the Settlement.

Indeed I wish your Lordship, for your own Sake, as you have ventured to succeed Lord Hillsborough, would adopt any Plan to satisfy the Petitioners rather than risk your Reputation in carrying into Execution such a dangerous Experiment. If the Affair is gone so far as it cannot be revoked, your Lordship will see, I am afraid, that, in a very few Years, not only Scotland and Ireland drained of their useful Inhabitants, but England, as the Schemers will doubtless think it right to make their Lands in America known to the People of England, and introduce a Taste for Migration that may not afterwards be so easily restrained.

ed. Upon the Whole, as an honest Man, and a loyal Subject, I should, if I was a Minister, advise his Majesty to preserve the Rights inviolable of the Indians in those distant Parts of America, rather than run any Risk of offending them, by opening such a Field for farther Encroachments on their Property.

I know it will be said Sir William Johnson has secured all these Lands by Treaty to the Crown, but I would suffer the Indians to occupy such Parts of them as they choose. Should this Grant on the Ohio, notwithstanding all that can be said against it, take Place, the immediate Consequence will be a great Emigration of our useful People, who will take the Lands easiest to be come at, on their landing in America, from the present Inhabitants, who will choose to move out of the Power of what they call their English Taskmasters. I know the Hearts and Language of many of them, though I declare, in the most solemn Manner, I am not acquainted with either Wharton, Franklin, Bernard, or Hutchinson.

In Order to have this important Affair properly investigated, before a final Hand is put to the Grant in Question, I am sure your Lordship should cause the Names of all those who are to be immediately interested in it to be published, together with the Advantages they have doubtless pointed out to the Ministry which this Kingdom is to reap from it; that the Publick may have it in their Power to judge of those Advantages, and acquiesce, or give their Reasons why the Measure should not be carried into Execution. This is now become your Lordship's Business.

I am, with the greatest Respect,

your Lordship's most devoted humble Servant,

H. W. WALPOLE.